Presidents reception This page: Stuart Harrison and the Intelli-Park team Opposite page, clockwise from top right: Richard Walker (far right) is BPA Vice-President for 2023-24; the reception was held in the Cholmondeley Room and Terrace Pavilion in the House of Lords; Stuart and family; the BPA team; catching up with parking peers; the work of Macmillan Cancer Support the BPAs corporate charity was celebrated on the day Extract from Stuart Harrisons speech Its a real honour to be standing here today. I pay tribute to all my predecessors. I have an opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants and play my part to help our sector continue to evolve. I want to acknowledge the achievements of my predecessor, Jade Neville. Jade has been an incredible ambassador [and] has achieved so much in raising awareness for tackling violence against women and girls, as well as many other safety initiatives. She did this not only within the parking community, but also the wider mobility and transport sectors. Id like to congratulate Richard Walker on his election to VicePresident. Richard is an asset to the industry and a major contributor already to the BPA. I look forward to working with him. Our private and public sector members are now working more collaboratively than ever before to find solutions to the significant issues we face. While the deterrent effect of parking and penalty charges may be politically complicated, it is great to see our diverse BPA community doing what it does best: coming together to evidence why charge levels need to provide a sufficient deterrent to enable effective parking management. This remains a priority and we will continue to work diligently to achieve this. This year, we hope to finally see the publication of the new Private Parking Code of Practice and the framework that will deliver higher standards. That is what everyone in this room is driving towards: to make sure that things are improved for everyone. 36 Id like to recognise our key supporters, such as DCBL, whose support has enabled us to develop a technology solution to share safer parking data with parking app providers and identify Park Mark sites on parking apps. In conjunction with our work supporting the governments tackling violence against women and girls campaign, weve joined forces with police networks to feature Park Mark car parks on apps such as WalkSafe an app where people can pre-plan a route to their home or vehicle. Journeys often begin and end in a car park. Safer parking scheme integration will show people the safest route and the most secure car parks. Another initiative that I am delighted to see progress is Park Access, a single accessible parking accreditation. The aim is to provide a reliable data source for drivers with accessibility needs, parents with children, and others, so that they can locate safe parking destinations. Were grateful for the support of Graham Footer [from DMUK] and Helen Dolphin [disability travel champion]. A key focus of our Council is continued professional development. To this end, the BPA has launched BPA Advance to support our parking community through training, wellbeing, mentoring and more. Its only when you stop to write a speech like this that you really start to appreciate how much we are achieving as an industry and it does need to be celebrated. Id like to say thank you for your incredible work because, really, Im just here talking about everyone in the rooms successes.